


f-stop and rewind

by rockthecliche



Series: Armageddon Pteradon [2]
Category: Johnny's Entertainment, NewS (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-29
Updated: 2012-12-29
Packaged: 2017-11-22 19:31:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/613459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rockthecliche/pseuds/rockthecliche
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>...aka, "4 Times Their Bandmates Snapped Kodak Moments and the Time Massu Took One Himself". Pictures are worth a thousand words, and other cliche sayings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	f-stop and rewind

**Author's Note:**

> Massu birthday fic because he's my baby and I love him. ♥ Another short installment in the ArmaPtera series -- this one takes place before [Paper & Pen, Beat & Mic](http://tothehudson.livejournal.com/13055.html), and about six months after [Over the Moon](http://community.livejournal.com/tothehudson/8757.html). You don't have to read those to get what's going on.

Ryo is clumsy when you throw him onto a beach with a healthy amount of alcohol mixed into his system, Koyama finds. He stumbles and trips and slurs his words, usually accompanied by flailing hands for balance more than excitement, and he tends to be a lot nicer, too, though Koyama would never say anything like that out loud. Not when Ryo can hear him, at least.

Still, Ryo is somewhat hilarious with the way his words are slurred and nonsensical, his skin glowing, shirt long gone, tossed into the sand when they first clambered over the fencing and down onto the beach. He's trying his best to keep upright, swearing up and down that he's not usually this much of a lightweight, and thinks getting into a dance contest, right here, right now, is a wonderful idea.

"Do you remember what happened the _last_ time you wanted to have a dance contest?" Koyama pipes up, thinking back to the Great Concussion of Summers Past.

"There's no music, either," Shige points out.

"Why do you always have to ruin everything?" Ryo gripes, kicking sand at him. Koyama jerks out of the way, saving his camera from the rain of sand.

Ryo's friend, Yasu, slings a calm arm around his shoulders, probably to placate him. "When has a lack of music ever stopped you?"

There's a call from further down the beach, a figure waving frantically in the air at them, silhouetted by the glow of the bonfire next to him. "If you don't hurry up, Massu's going to eat all the s'mores!" comes Tegoshi's voice and Ryo takes off running, although it's more like a hurried zombie walk because he forgets that Yasu is still hanging onto him.

"You mean Pi hasn't eaten them all already?" Shige calls back, falling into step next to Koyama as they walk after them. Their section of the beach is completely devoid of people except for them and the roaring fire, the waves calm and collected though the water is way too cold to try and do any swimming. The moon makes for a rather dramatic lighting effect, something Koyama would be okay with if it wasn't for the fact that with the moonlight and the light from the fire, he has no idea what setting to put his digital camera on.

"Pi is toasting marshmallows with a strange amount of glee," Tegoshi says, pointing at the other man. True enough, Pi is standing by the fire, marshmallows stuck on the end of his stick, waving the white confectionary sweets in and out of the flame and giggling up a storm when they catch fire. Next to him, Massu starts flapping at the pseudo-flambeed marshmallows but only proceeds to makes the fire bigger. Koyama snaps a few pictures of everyone as Shige curls up in a blanket and sits on a log, probably in a rather futile attempt to distance himself from the crowd of idiots around the fire.

Meanwhile, Ryo falls onto them, draping an arm around each and wedges himself in the middle, staring at the flaming marshmallows as if they hold the answers to the universe. "...should blow them out." A pause. "Heh...'blow'."

Apparently, Ryo also turns into a four year old, though it's not much different from his usual five year old mentality. When Ryo flashes a merry 'v' sign at Koyama, he snaps another picture, then looks at it to see how his new camera is faring.

"You two are my best friends," Ryo is saying as Pi puts the marshmallows out of their fiery misery. "Besides Yasu but he doesn't count."

"Hey!"

Massu rolls his eyes a little, reaching over Ryo and sandwiching the marshmallows between two graham crackers and some chocolate, though he doesn't look annoyed. Quite the opposite, actually. "Be nice, Ryo-chan."

"I'm _always_ nice," Ryo grumps. "Now feed me."

"Feed yourself!" Massu retorts, waving the s'mores in front of Ryo's face. Ryo, being the type of person that he is, dives for it with his mouth instead of his hands and nearly falls into the fire -- _would have_ fallen into the fire if it hadn't been for Pi catching him and and pulling him away, knocking the s'more out of Massu's hands as they topple backwards and onto the sand. Somehow, Massu manages to catch the s'more, but he can't save it from the flurry of sand from Pi and Ryo's scrambling to right themselves.

Somewhere around them, Tegoshi is cackling.

"You got sand on it!" Pi mourns. RIP, S'more-kun.

Massu frowns. "It was your fault."

"Whatever, give it here." Ryo swipes the s'more from both their hands and makes to eat it, sand be damned.

"I'm not letting you eat _sand_ , do you know what's been _in_ the sand?" Massu says, reaching for it, but Ryo hops away.

"Like foot AIDS," Shige deadpans from his log.

"It doesn't even have that much on it, it's like a s'more with a _side_ of sand, it's whatever!" Ryo argues, protecting the s'more like it's his child.

Massu gives up, throwing his arms up in the air. "Why do I bother?" He pauses. "Come to think of it, why does something stupid have to happen whenever we come here? Why can't we just have a nice, normal night out without concussions or people willingly eating sand covered s'mores?"

"Because," Koyama begins, steadying his camera to capture Ryo dusting the s'more off and Massu's put upon look, though it's hard to get a clean shot when he's trying to smother his giggles, "no one ever remembers normal."

 

Shige doesn't like the summer a lot. It's hot and sticky and overall pretty gross, the beaches overrun with adults and kids alike, and even though it's a break from school, it's hardly a break at all considering the need for a summer job, or summer courses. Overall, Shige would rather stay inside for the duration of it.

However, what he _does_ like is how every city in the state comes up with the most basic of excuses to have a fireworks show. He doesn't go to all of them -- being outside, gross, etc. -- but when the carnival in his own town ends its annual weeklong resurgence with a show itself, Shige figures he can make the trek just once. And, of course, because he's such a good friend, he invites the rest of the band out to join him.

Generally, the carnival is usual fare, but the way Tegoshi takes to the food stands and Koyama spends dollar after dollar at the carnie games is a little embarrassing. Pi has powdered sugar all over his mouth and shirt from his enthusiastic eating of fresh, deep-fried zeppole and Shige is somewhat surprised that Massu isn't looking the same. Rather, Massu and Ryo seem perfectly content just wandering around aimlessly -- every so often there's a gander at a carnival game, or a rather insistent pressing to go on the swinging boat ride, but they're quiet. Shige falls behind and tags along with them because they, at least, won't embarrass him if they run into anyone he knows.

The sun sets and Shige leads them all to a hill, motioning towards the area the fireworks will be set off, joining a small gathering of other people already settled in for the show. "We should be fine here," Shige says. Tegoshi and Pi lead a small pack of _friendly_ girls over and settle down a little bit away, the girls' voice carrying in the breeze, Tegoshi's voice higher than all of theirs combined.

As Shige gets his digital SLR out of his bag, Massu sits rather ungracefully, but he doesn't really have anyone to impress. He looks up and spreads his arms open, beckoning for Ryo to fall into them, but Ryo doesn't look all that amused.

"What do I look like?"

Massu shrugs. "Like a person who likes cuddling with me."

Shige snaps a picture of Ryo's blushing, incredulous face as a settings test.

There's still a few minutes before the fireworks begin, so Shige wanders around and takes pictures here and there; a few of Pi and the brunette he seems to have taken a liking to, Tegoshi's patented _"I'm_ so _going to score,"_ face with the blonde he's chatting up, and Koyama lugging a sizable stuffed seal with him, won from one of the games.

"Did you win that or did they just give it to you?"

Koyama frowns at Ryo. "I'm insulted you think so lowly of my pitching arm."

Ryo, Shige is amused to see, is not cuddling with Massu, but sitting close enough he might as well be on the man's lap anyway. Koyama plops his seal down onto the ground, settling himself against its side for a makeshift pillow, and Shige sits next to him. The hill is getting more crowded now, children and adults and teens all vying for a spot to watch the fireworks go off. The air is dry and there's a bit of a breeze, and it's really almost perfect when the first whiz of a rocket flies into the air and explodes into a dazzling array of red.

Emphasis on the 'almost'.

Tegoshi's pseudo-date doesn't take very kindly to the notion that he wasn't really looking for a relationship. She gets up and leaves in a huff and so Tegoshi leaves Pi and joins their little circle, griping about how girls should be more appreciative of how honest he is -- it's a _favor_ he's doing for them, really, being up front about how he likes things with no strings attached.

"She should be glad I even talked to her," Tegoshi continues, even as the fireworks continue to blaze up above, "her hair wasn't even a natural blonde."

Massu finally loses it and cracks, bursting into laughter so hard he has to clutch onto Ryo's shoulder just to keep himself from doubling over completely. Shige isn't one for candid pictures because he finds most of them technically sloppy, but he can't quite resist a giggly Massu and so he snaps a picture of him and Ryo and part of Koyama's nose in the corner, the laughter contagious and smiles lit up in the light from the fireworks show.

Tegoshi merely huffs. "You guys are assholes."

 

For Pi and Ryo, it's become something like a tradition to get together the day after both are done with their finals for the year and make a decent meal at Ryo's apartment. It's something they started three years ago during freshman year of college, a celebration for making it through an entire year without wanting to drop out (much), and it holds a special place in Pi's heart.

This year, the invitation has been extended to the band at large, though only Massu and Shige show up for it -- Tegoshi finished all his exams early to go on a cruise with his aunt and uncle and Koyama has to pick up his summer job of helping at his mom's restaurant, which really kind of sucks because out of them all, Koyama has the most culinary skill and Tegoshi has the ability to make things delicious just by the power of his sparkle appeal. Shige isn't bad at cooking, just clumsy; Pi digs out a box of band-aids and sets them aside. Just in case.

Ryo's not so bad at it, either, if he ever just got his shit together and actually bought groceries instead of pack after pack of instant ramen, but ever since Massu unofficially moved in, the fridge has shown signs of improvement -- there's more in there now, not just bottles of mayo and ketchup. There's remnants of a tomato sauced pasta, a pan of potatoes au gratin, and _goddamn_ there's even broccoli!

"I didn't know you ate greens," Pi remarks.

"I don't. Massu does." Ryo unbags some of the groceries they went out to buy. Or rather, Shige and Massu went out to buy. None of them trusts Ryo's ability to grocery shop.

"How are you not dead?"

"The good grace of God," Ryo deadpans, throwing a dinner roll at Pi's head.

The chaos starts when Massu, for some reason, thinks they can just turn the old plate of potato au gratin into a bowl of mashed potatoes. _"It has cheese! And potatoes! Cheesy mashed potatoes!"_ is his argument, and they all agree because based on principle alone, cheesy mashed potatoes would be pretty great. Except they forget the issue that they're basically cooking potatoes twice and it ends up having the same consistency (and taste) as mashed refried beans.

Shige puts it best: "Gross."

Pi and Shige kick Ryo out of the kitchen when he starts to complain that this is taking too long, but when Pi's attempt at chicken with a balsamic reduction goes awry and tastes quite possibly like ass, Shige shoves him out of the kitchen too. Armed with what they have left -- an onion, a red pepper, half an eggplant, and two potatoes, Shige rolls up his sleeves and gets to work, displaying culinary skills no one knew he had, though when he starts crying mid-onion chopping, no one seems to remember that he's the only one capable of making them something resembling a cooked meal. In the midst of the jokes and Massu heaping tissues upon him, Shige burns half the stir-fry and overcooks his attempt at gnocchi.

The chaos ends.

Half an hour later, they're all seated at the square dining table Ryo has tucked in the side of his apartment, each with a steaming bowl of ramen in front of them. Ryo's face is the definition of smug as he is the one who salvaged their night and broke out his leftover packs of instant ramen, winning victoriously in the culmination of the world's worst episode of Collegiate Top Chef, ever.

Pi sets the timer on his camera and sits in his seat, right in time for it to take a picture of them all staring solemnly into their steaming bowls of noodles.

All except one, anyway.

"Adding that egg was a brilliant idea. Man, I'm great at this."

Pi steals Ryo's egg out of spite.

 

Because Tegoshi's parents are usually never home, he tends to surround himself with people throughout the summer. It's okay when he's away at college -- he doesn't have a giant house looming all over him and making him feel small, but he hates being home alone for long periods of time. It's something he's never gotten used to even though a large majority of his time at home is spent alone. He likes attention. Craves it, even. So over the summer, there's people of all types in and out of his house. Backpacking through the US? Come on in! Need a place to have a swank party? By all means! Make yourselves at home. _Really._

It's 4:58 in the morning and Tegoshi jolts awake when his phone vibrates in his pocket at a new email or text message or something -- he digs into his pocket once he realizes what it is and silences it. It's too early to deal with it. Who in the world is texting him at 4:58 in the morning anyway?

He lifts his head from his lazy sprawl on the loveseat and surveys the room. His living room is littered with food containers and soda bottles, the room a casualty in the war between humans, junk food, and a marathon of the Harry Potter film series. He's pretty sure they all had fallen asleep somewhere around _Prisoner of Azkaban_ , limbs everywhere, Shige mumbling in his sleep and Pi snoring peacefully underneath the coffee table.

On the other sofa, Ryo is half on, half off, lying face down, arm dangling off the edge. Massu is next to him, half curled up and half flung about in all directions. It's kind of cute. Only kind of. It's only kind of cute that Massu is in love with the band's resident emo lyricist. And it's only a little bit cuter that the resident emo lyricist actually reciprocates. Tegoshi always thought that 'heartbroken' was the emo lyricist's default mood -- he still believes in that a little, even though Shige has told him that he was very, very wrong in his assumption (even against Tegoshi's argument that Shige fell in the same category, though in retrospect, he shouldn't be surprised Shige was mildly peeved at him afterward). Anyway, Shige had spouted some pretty classy stuff about how _everyone_ was entitled to love or whatever, but Tegoshi had stopped paying attention to Shige yesteryear, and he's only known him for one year.

Besides, it's whatever. Massu is happy. Massu is happy with someone Tegoshi hadn't ever expected when he was told that he's dating someone.

Ryo reaches up and scratches his nose, then promptly goes back to bed.

Tegoshi does what any normal person would have done.

It is 9:32 in the morning when Tegoshi is shaken awake and comes face to face with a furious Ryo, waving his cell phone around like his own personal lightsaber of justice. There's marker drawings all over his face, some cute, some not so, some overly lewd, and all right, Tegoshi probably shouldn't have used Sharpie but at least the picture of them cuddling is kind of cute, right? Massu has drawings of his own, just not on his face, which Ryo deems to be grossly unfair.

Massu wakes up in the midst of all the fuss and once he catches a glance of Ryo's marked face, he merely looks confused. "Why does it say 'balls' on your face?"

"Tegoshi needed to feel like he had some _somehow_ ," Ryo grumbles as he furiously scrubs at his forehead.

 

The sun creeps up into the sky, peeking in between the slats of the window blinds, and a ray of light hits Massu right in the eyes. Massu groans at the sudden brightness, rolling over and shielding himself from it. He doesn't know what time it is; he first assumes it has to be early as the sun is still climbing up, but he can hear the sound of the shower running in the bathroom, and a few pats to the empty space on the mattress next to him tells him it's Ryo in there, which strikes him as odd -- Ryo is barely awake and functioning before Massu, ever, but maybe the other has something to do this morning. Either way, Massu rolls back over, takes up the entire bed, and goes back to sleep.

A few hours go by and this time, Massu checks the time when he wakes up and is alarmed to see it's almost two in the afternoon. Ryo is back in bed, but not sleeping; he's reading. _Reading._ He must have been _really_ bored.

"Have you been up long?" Massu asks once he clears his throat of morning grog.

Ryo starts, then shuts his book. "No, not really. I, uh, made you breakfast -- "

Massu's heart swells.

" -- but then you kept sleeping so it got cold."

"Oh." It's hard to mask the disappointment.

"I did end up making a small cake." Ryo leans over and gets something from the floor. Massu is almost appalled that Ryo would just leave food on the floor willy nilly, but a plate comes up with the cake, and he feels a little ridiculous even thinking that.

"I didn't know you could bake." Massu sits up properly, inspecting the somewhat lumpy chocolate cake.

"Well, I don't. But I found one of those five minute recipes online and figured it was worth a shot." Ryo sticks a candle into the cake, then fumbles around for his lighter, setting the candle alight when he finds it. Even though they all planned a pretty bitching costume party taking place later in the day, and even though he still has a billion things to do to set up and he knows Tegoshi won't be any help at all, this simple gesture -- making him breakfast, then a cake, not even waking him up when Ryo had probably been up for hours already -- it's already a lot more than Massu ever came to expect from his birthday.

So Massu grows quiet, says thank you, and blows the candle out. He takes a bite of the cake and pauses, chewing thoughtfully.

Ryo, to his credit, actually looks kind of anxious about the outcome, so it makes Massu feel really bad when the first thing he says is, "Ryo, this is _terrible_ ," and nearly spits it out, but that would be _too_ insulting. And a waste of food.

"Hey, I spent good time on that!"

"But you said it was only five minutes."

"Five minutes is still a long time!" Ryo goes to grab the plate, intent on proving him wrong. Massu moves his arms away, cake and plate bobbing precariously in the air.

"Trust me, you really don't want to try it."

"Ungrateful brat," Ryo growls, making Massu laugh and flush at the sound at the same time. In his distraction, Ryo manages to swipe the cake and tries to force it into Massu's mouth, but the cake is so dry that it crumbles halfway through, littering the bed with crumbs. Ryo halts in his movements, looking around them in disbelief. Massu's sure he has pieces of terrible chocolate cake in his hair but for once, he doesn't care.

"Do you believe me now?"

"One day, I'll make you five minute cake and you'll like it."

"We'll see about that." Massu detangles himself from the chaotic mess of sheets and pillows, trying to find his watch. "What time is it?"

"2:30."

"I guess we have to go soon."

"Well," Ryo starts, shifting so he's sprawling over Massu's body. "They can't really yell at you for being late."

"Oh, are we going to be late?" Massu turns to look at Ryo again, committing to memory the way his hair falls into his eyes, long overdue for a haircut; the sweetness in his eyes that Massu only sees during moments like these, tucked away for just the two of them; just how much Ryo is really part of his life now, and doesn't think about changing that fact at all. This moment, it's something Massu will always remember, in vivid detail. The moment he knows he's in love with Ryo.

Ryo chuckles, sending hot air against Massu's neck. "Cheeky." He kisses him, probably in an attempt to convince him to forget being on time, and Massu winds fingers through Ryo's hair, keeping him close, because it would be unheard of to arrive on time or even early on his birthday. He hums his pleasure, feeling it pool in his cheeks and goes to deepen the kiss but Ryo pulls back after a few moments, nose wrinkled in disgust. "Oh god, is that what the cake tasted like?"

Massu laughs. "I told you it was gross."


End file.
